Araby is about a young boy's first step into adulthood. It is told in the first person, but the main character is telling the story at an older age. He uses the metaphor "foolish blood" showing that at the time he considers himself to have been foolish then, as in comparison to the present.
Joyce uses many similes in the story to how exactly how the character was feeling, at a time when the young boy himself was not aware of what happening to him. He had a crush on his friend’s older sister. He explains, “But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.” It is here that the reader can feel what he is going through, for we all have had a crush when we were young. When the young boy is late for the Araby festival and realizes that he will not be able to purchase a gift for his crush as he promised her, he becomes very angry. The author can recall this memory as a time when he was becoming a man and dealing with life’s ups and downs. The last sentence states, “Gazing up into the darkness I aw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity: and my eye burned with anguish and anger.” He is aware more of reality here than he had even been before. He thought that he would have the time of his life and yet was feeling hurt and disappointment. It is all a part of growing up that even the narrator does not want to face, but has to.
